Clip Culture Threatens Big Media

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'Old School' broadcasters are beginning to offer content on the web and/or mobile phones. Like anything else mobile phone related, Asia is light years ahead of North America in this area. I'm guessing profit margin expectations are to blame here. Whether it is content providers or the mobile phone companies that are to blame, we will never know. All I know is that there is not much content available here.

In terms of the web, the barbarians are at the gate. Amateur videographers and video remixers empowered by video sharing sites are challenging big media for eyeballs. Youtube, Blinkx.tv, Truveo.com, Google Video, AOL Video, Yahoo Video, TVEyes, GoFish, MSN video and other sharing sites are chock full of must-see video clips. Most films are only movie trailer or sports highlight length. They can be entirely amateur shot and developed to mash-ups of copyright protected content (infringing) to unedited clips of copyright protected content.

Michael Geist recently spoke about this issue: "From a business perspective, media compaines are being forced to grapple with the competitive threat of user-generated content and how to address unauthorized sharing of their clips... Users are increasingly not satisfied with merely consuming content, but rather deamnd the ability to share and re-create it." (Toronto Star 20 March 2006: C4).

Remember the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction at SuperBowl? It was online for download within 15 minutes of the altercation. Saturday Night Live's mock music video called "Lazy Sunday" and its west coast response "Lazy Monday" (Wall Street Journal 1 March 2006: D4). Ever see the withdrawn TV ad for Ford's 'Sport Ka' car?..the one with the sunroof and the cat? There is alot of content that companies yank for PR reasons, business reasons that live on (illegally) online.

Back to mobile phones. I predict (yikes) that if content prices remain unaffordable, in time, rogue networks will develop to meet demand for "free" content on mobile phone handsets. Already the Symbian OS has been proven to not be robust and content is being migrated from DVDs to handsets. Network accessible content is around the corner. For now we have the Video iPod and its cousins. Lets hope mobile and online video content business will not be bungled like music was. People will pay if the DRM is robust and prices are reasonable. Forget quarterly profit, go longterm. Please!